May 13, 2008

Fresh Start on Afghanistan Debate

Manley report: No one gets off easy, and that's good.

TheTyee.ca

It just might be that yesterday's report from John Manley's independent panel on Canada's role in Afghanistan will turn out to be the very thing this country needed: a kind of blueprint to build a sensible, non-partisan national consensus about how Canada should conduct itself in that poor, blighted country.

There's still hope.

But for it to happen, Canadians, and especially Canada's political leaders, will have to squarely face the hard, horrible and inconvenient truths that Manley and his panelists so thoroughly canvassed.

The report is essential reading for a clear understanding of what we're up against. It's the most serious and wide-ranging review of this country's engagement in Afghanistan since Canadian soldiers first set foot there in early 2002.

For any sort of national consensus to emerge from this, we're all going to have to start thinking very clearly about how to address the central question facing Canada, which the panel report put this way:

"At its core, the aim of Canadian policy is to leave Afghanistan to Afghans, in a country better governed, more peaceful and more secure. How can Canada, with others, best contribute to accomplishing that result within the limits of Canadian capacity and influence?"

To get to that particular conversation, however, will require a degree of humility, candour and leadership that none of Canada's national party leaders have shown on the Afghanistan question thus far.

ADVERTISEMENT

To do list for leaders

It means New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton will have to stop the hippie-speak about "George Bush's war" and start brushing up on some basic facts. Reacting to the panel's report Tuesday, Layton's first words, in an official statement, were: "For six years, the Liberals and Conservatives have had Canada involved in a counter-insurgency combat mission in southern Afghanistan." Actually, it was only a little more than two years ago that Canadian soldiers finally moved out of Kabul to take over in Kandahar.

It means Liberal leader Stephane Dion will have to abandon his sophomoric and illogical fixation with a 2009 departure date -- or any fixed departure date -- for Canadian soldiers in Kandahar. He might also dust off some of those stirring campaign speeches he once made about the necessity of a "Marshall Plan" for Afghanistan.

It means the next time Green Party leader Elizabeth May feels the urge to blame "ISAF forces from a Christian/crusader heritage" for the depredations of violent jihadists in Afghanistan, she might first recall that there are hundreds of brave Muslim soldiers from ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan, from such countries as Turkey and Azerbaijan.

She might be reminded as well that Canada has no "crusader" heritage, and that the signatories to the Afghan Compact, which sets ISAF's agenda, include Iran, Jordan, Qatar and several other Muslim-majority countries. And that Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, is himself a Muslim.

Harper's hash

It also means Prime Minister Stephen Harper will have to suck it up, grow a spine, and fix the mess he's made of the Afghan mission.

Harper has never shown any convincing moral dedication to the mission in the first place, his supine posture to the White House and his now-mothballed "hawk" persona notwithstanding, and he has made a complete hash of it from the outset.

Manley properly excoriated the Harper government for its conduct:

The weird muzzling of Canadian aid officials and diplomats. Ottawa's bizarre inability to engage in anything resembling a straightforward accounting of the mission's risks. Its absurd hobbling of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in Afghanistan. The cabinet's irresponsible inattention to the equipment and transportation requirements of Canadian soldiers on Kandahar's front lines.

And on and on.

My role in new group

Whatever one makes of their criticisms, Manley and his fellow panelists produced a document that doesn't come close to the "stay the course" mandate we were told Harper handpicked them to provide, and which the same pundits even now insist is all the panel produced.

I'm fairly happy with it. And here I make a necessary confession.

I was privileged to co-author a submission to the Manley panel on behalf of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee, a newly formed group of Canadian feminists, academics, campus activists, writers, former politicians, and concerned citizens. Manley's basic findings and recommendations are more than sufficiently consistent with what we recommended.

They will have a diversity of ideas about the Manley panel report, and about any number of things. In this column I speak for no one but myself, but one thing all the committee's founding members shared was a simple but important proposition about Afghanistan: Human rights are universal, the United Nations wants us there, and a military component is vital and necessary.

What most Afghans want

There was another thing that united the small group that got the committee going, and it was our discovery that we were all fairly disgusted that all these years since 2002, there was still an almost complete absence of Afghan people, Afghan-Canadians, and Afghan opinion, generally, in Canada's mass media.

Read Canada's dailies and you'd think that the entire country was populated solely by President Hamid Karzai, a bunch of pro-American warlords, hordes of Taliban throat-slitters, and a certain quixotic and romantic personality, Malalai Joya, MP.

So, we set out to find what the Afghan people themselves had to say about their hopes for their country, and about the engagement of soldiers from nearly 40 nations on their soil.

What we found, for starters, was a dozen major national public opinion polls carried out in Afghanistan, along with regional opinion surveys and focus-group analyses. And they all added up to one unmistakable conclusion.

The Afghan people want democracy, they want to control their own destiny, and they want peace, security, and jobs. They're fed up to the teeth with all the savage misogynists and gunmen and religious fanatics who persist in terrorizing them. They don't want the Taliban back. And they want us to stay until we've finished our work there.

'We want you to stay'

Inconveniently, this completely contradicts the fashionable caricature of the Afghan people as incorrigibly reactionary and irredeemably priest-ridden basket cases who want nothing of democracy or modernity and want Canadian soldiers the hell out, fast.

It's something that Manley's panelists also noticed. "Whenever we asked Afghans what they thought ISAF or Canada should do," the panel report states, "there was never any hesitation: `We want you to stay; we need you to stay.' "

This is terribly inconvenient for all the "troops-out" polemicists and their similarly isolationist paleo-conservative chums who have so effectively framed Canada's public discourse about Afghanistan to date.

But it is a fact, nonetheless. And no less inconvenient for the "anti-war" left is the fact that the Afghan people are waging a liberation struggle. They're fighting imperialism -- of an Islamist kind. They're fighting for democracy, for literacy, and for the rule of law, and against barbarism, obscurantism and oppression.

Just ask them.

This truth is especially inconvenient for the left, precisely because this struggle is what used to be called the historic mission of the left. Its fruit, bitter though it has often been, is what the left contributed to human history.

Time for new debate

Funny thing about history. You can't start over.

We didn't choose the cruel alignment of historical and political forces that put our soldiers in Afghanistan. We didn't create the conditions that rendered our penchant for "peacekeeping" moot there.

And we can't pretend that the demand for "negotiations"' with the Taliban is anything more than a mélange of public naiveté and political sleight-of-hand. The Karzai regime, with Canada's backing, had already negotiated the surrender and rehabilitation of nearly 60,000 mujahideen fighters, Taliban militiamen and gunmen of various types long before the notion of talking with the Taliban got all trendy. The door is still open. It never closed.

One important thing we can do, though, is to move to a wholly new kind of debate in Canada about our country's role in Afghanistan. The Manley panel has laid the groundwork for precisely that.

If a new kind of debate emerges, it's got to be firmly rooted in a commitment to the universality of human rights. It's going to have to include a lot more Afghan voices, particularly women's voices. Most importantly, it's got to put behind us the sordid and crippling debates we've been having, for far too long, about how quickly we might simply extricate ourselves from their messy affairs.

1 comment:

The reference to "Christian Crusaders" in the Green Party Press Release is in the context of how the Taliban are choosing to describe the ISAF troops in order to better recruit more insurgents.

The GPC does not consider Canadian troops to be "Christian Crusaders". In fact if you read our Afghanistan position in "Vision Green" on our web-site you will see that it is not that dissimilar to the Afghanistan position you advance in your blog.

ShareThis

~ What must be done next ~

Website:http://www.MoveToAmend.orgMission:We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:
* Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
* Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our votes and participation count.
* Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.
Company Overview:
On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions. The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, The People rule.

Proposed change to the US Constitution

I. Powers and Rights Reserved To We the People, Never Delegated or Violated Without Consent

A. The People are expressly defined as human beings and does not refer to corporations or contractual relationships.

B. No contract, agreement, or promise may ever bind any human to refuse to enforce the law, or prohibit them from speaking on matters of public interest.

C. We the People may believe anything, including the possible belief that this Constitution must be discarded and replaced with a superior document which defends the People and protects their power to enforce this Constitution against the Government.

D. The People are educated to apply the lessons of history to ensure rights are preserved, power asserted, and this Constitution is protected from domestic and foreign enemies.

E. The People have the enforceable right and power to review any public document and access any public official.

F. The People have the enforceable right to engage in any speech, communication, or discussion on issues of war crimes, government incompetence, or allegations of reckless government planning and maladministration.

G. Government officials, agencies, departments may not invoke any power or right they have denied to the People.

H. The People have the right to affordable housing. Where none is available, the government is denied the power to prosecute anyone for not living in a home, or residing in a public park, open forest, or public lands.

I. The People have the enforceable right to freely travel, without questions, and without delay. Any law enforcement officer, agents, or contacted security official who uses any ruse, scheme, or deception to engage in pretextual stops shall be enforced as a violation of this Constitution.

J. The People have the enforceable right to compel govenment officials, contractors, and securty personnel to identify themselves, disclose their policies and procedures, and respond to complaints about violations of this Constitution, the Supreme Law, or laws of war.

K. The People may not be subject to any electronic surveillance except on probable cause and a warrant before a judicial tribunal. The President, Congress and others are expressly denied the power to enact, create, use, or rely on quasi-judicial tribunals to self-certify warrants to conduct surveillance.

L. All denied powers to the US Government in this Constitution are reserved to the People to be used to defend the Constitution.

II. Powers and Rights Reserved to States

A. States shall have authority to enforce any law within their jurisdiction. Failure to enforce the laws of war shall be prosecuted as a war crime.

B. States shall, when the Federal Government refuses to enforce the Constitution or Supreme Law, enforce the national and international law against contractors, legal counsel, state or US government officials.

C. Any state may start impeachment investigations or proceedings against the President, Member of Congress, or US government official on issues of international laws of war, domestic rebellion, or violations of the Supreme Law oath of office, or Geneva Conventions. The States shall, upon receipt of an impeachment investigation or conviction from any other state, shall within 10 days debate that resolution. If convicted by 2/3 of the States, that US government official shall be removed from office. Any effort to thwart State efforts to enforce the US Constitution through impeachment investigations or impeachment proceedings at the State level may be construed as a subsequent violation of this Constitution and laws of war.

D. The States may, without notice, organize themselves to collectively defend this Constitution from the domestic enemies in the United States government. The States Governors have the standing power, right, and authority to use deadly combat force to enforce this Constitution against US government officials.

E. A failure of any State official to enforce the laws of war shall be subject to a war crimes trial within 90 days of discovering that evidence. Where there are credible allegations of war crimes, a failure to investigate shall be construed as a subsequent war crime, punishable by the death penalty.

F. States have the power to enforce contract obligations between contractors and the US government which affect the rights of their State citizens. Failure to enforce these contractual obligations against the contractors or US government could be construed as a subsequent violation under the laws of war and US Constitution against legal counsel, state officials, or court officers.

III. Independent Branch

A. All US government, contractor-provided, and legal counsel data shall be retained in an independent branch.

B. The President, Congress, and Judicial branches have no power, right or claim to not fully fund this Independent Branch.

C. The Independent Branch conducts electronic surveillance of the US government, stores that data, and ensures there are independent, safe, retained records of all US government transaction, including conversations and memos between legal counsel and government officials. Once created for the government or connected with any legal or illegal activity, these records are public records.

D. The data may be seen only upon a showing of reasonable belief or suspicion by the United States Congress, Court, or Executive Branch that the information may be useful in enforcing the Constitution, Supreme Law, or Geneva Conventions.

E. Private citizens may view any data, unless the US government provides sufficient, detailed evidence why that request for information should not be met for bonafide, lawful secrets. Any effort to hide evidence behind a claim of "state secrets," where that claim is linked with an effort to bypass the Constitution, oath of office, Supreme Law, or laws of war may be punishable by the death penalty.

F. All government data belongs to the People. Any legal counsel working for the US government shall ensure that the People's right to reliable information is protected. A failure to protect this information could be construed as a war crime.

IV. Prosecutorial Branch

A. All prosecutorial options are denied of the President.

B. The Prosecutorial branch has the power to raise independent combat power, support them, and may lawfully use that deadly combat force to confront Members of Congress, the Judicial Branch Officers, or the Presidents upon showing of probable cause for war crimes.

C. The prosecutorial power is the exclusive power of the prosecution branch. However, anyone may make a claim of illegal activity, and enforce the laws of the United States and States respectively. Any effort to block anyone from unilaterally attempting to enforce the laws of war through discovery, investigation, and open discussion of those alleged war crimes shall be construed as a possible subsequent offense under the laws of war.

D. Legal counsel are subject to public review, audit, and can be required, with fair notice, of a requirement to demonstrate before any court their compliance with the laws of war.

E. Legal counsel may be denied authority to conduct discovery during any investigation when that discovery is linked with efforts that would thwart war crimes investigation, enforcement of the Supreme law or Geneva Conventions.

V. Judicial Branch

A. The Judicial Branch is above the Legislative Branch and Executive Branch only in order of precedence. The Judicial Branch is a co-equal branch, and closest to the People and Constitution. It is least responsive, and most slow to the People's daily interests to enforce the Constitution and Supreme Law or Geneva Conventions.

B. Where the Judicial Branch does not timely enforce the Constitution, Supreme Law, or laws of war, the States and People retain the power and right to investigate and prosecute allegations of US government illegal activity, war crimes, or violations of the Supreme law.

C. All precedents under the laws of war are binding on the Judicial Branch, US government, and the People through enforcement actions.

D. Any decision by any judicial officer not to fully enforce the laws of war, Supreme Law, or this Constitution may be construed as a war crime, subject to the death penalty.

VI. Legislative Branch

A. The Legislative Branch is listed after the Judicial Branch because it is less responsive to the People.

B. The Members of Congress may be stopped between sessions and held to account for their failure to enforce the laws of war.

C. Refusing to investigate or impeach the President, Judicial Officers, or any current or former US government official for alleged war crimes, maladministration, illegal warfare, or other crimes against the People, States, or US Government shall be prima facie evidence of an intent to not fully assert ones oath of office, and punishable by the death penalty under the laws of war.

D. There are three chambers to the Congress. The Senate and House have a legal duty to fully enforce the laws. Any decision to not timely review evidence of impeachable offenses, or not investigate war crimes or maladministration could be construed as subsequent offenses under the laws of war.

E. The Superior Chamber shall decide, before any debate, whether the proposed bill is or is not Constitutional. This determination is subject to approval, challenge, and rejection by the People, States, and Judicial Branch.

F. The Congress is denied the exclusive power to make rules. Any rule which prohibits any investigation into alleged malfeasance in re the laws of war, Supreme Law, or oath of office is illegal, and may be construed as a subsequent offense under the laws of war.

G. The Congress shall comply with public audits, and timely provide within 45 days of an audit report a statement of remedy, and outline a plan within 90 days to fully comply with all legal obligations under the Statute, Supreme Law, oath of office, and laws of war.

H. The Congress may raise and support an army, and independently order that army only against the President when the President refuses to enforce the laws of war, or comply with his legal obligations under this Constitution.

VII. Executive Branch

A. The Executive Branch is led by three Presidents, co-equal with non-overlapping jurisdictions. The Executive Branch has one power: Executive Power. All actions taken under that one power are lesser authorities not powers. The Executive Branch has no power to create new powers or assign itself broader power.

B. The Executive Branch is listed last because it is the least responsive to the People, and the greatest threat of tyranny to this Constitution. The President is a clerk, not a King or Emperor. The President only manages programs. The President has no power to ignore, rewrite, or refuse to enforce the law. Each of the three Presidents shall have an ongoing requirement to demonstrate to the People and States and Congress and Courts compliance with the Constitution, Supreme Law, oath of office, and laws of war.

C. The Domestic Affairs President is responsive to the States and US Government on internal affairs.

D. The Foreign Affairs President shall have exclusive power to interact with foreign powers. The Foreign Affairs President is denied any power to violate the laws of war, or use covert activity against American citizens.

E. The Executive Branch, Congress, Judiciary, and Foreign Affairs President are denied the power to thwart any lawful State action to organize with foreign powers and agents to defend the US Constitution, enforce the laws of war, or protect the rights and powers of the People and States against domestic encroachments by the US government, legal counsel, or other US government officials.

F. The Commander in Chief shall only have power to lead combat operations during war time. Congress shall conduct ongoing, public reviews whether the Commander in Chief is or is not competent in managing combat operations. The Presidents and Commander in Chief are denied the power to prohibit Congress from using electronic surveillance or use separately raised and supported armies to conduct this oversight during wartime and peacetime.

G. The Executive Branch is denied the power to block anyone from getting access to illegal activity related to the laws of war.

H. During Peacetime, the Commander in Chief shall periodically cooperate with ongoing Oversight of US combat forces to ensure they are combat ready, fully trained on the laws of war, and prepared to lawfully be used to defend the Constitution against foreign and domestic enemies.

I. The Executive Branch and Presidents and officers, agents, contractors, and personnel are denied the power, right, or authority to order anyone to ignore any statute, law, legal requirement, or obligation under the Constitution.

J. The Executive Branch has no power or authority to directly contact the Legislative Branch by name. The President may only request, not order other branches of government. All Communications between the Executive and Legislative Branch shall pass through the Prosecutorial Branch, and retained in the National Archives. Those records are available for public inspection at any time. The People have the enforceable right to compel the Executive Branch, Legislature, and Judicial Branch to produce documents.

K. The Executive Branch, Congress, Judicial Branch, and Prosecutorial Branch, and States are denied the power to wage warfare, information warfare, or harass American civilians through his agents, combat troops, or third parties in the United states or from overseas. Any funds used for this illegal purpose belong to the People and States. Contracts used to enforce, compel, or organize this illegal activity are not enforceable, and contrary to public policy.

L. The Presidents are denied a presumption of competence until proven. The President shall always have the burden of proof, and is expressly denied a presumption of good faith until demonstrated with overwhelming evidence in public. An election result is not proof of competence nor does it satisfy a presumption of good faith, only of mastery to win an election through legal or illegal methods and deception.

M. The Executive Branch and Presidents and subordinate agency head, contractor, and employees are expressly denied any assurance any conversation he has related to illegal activity, war crimes, unlawful acts, or other threats to the US Constitution shall remain secret behind any shield, scheme, agreement, or technology. Any order a President or anyone gives to anyone to hide, destroy,not provide, or conceal evidence of illegal activity may be construed as a subsequent war crime, punishable by the death penalty. This restriction against following illegal orders may not be bypassed by claiming the order was from a non-person, electronic device, or other non-Constitutionally recognized entity, database, policy, guide, or other document.

N. The Presidents are denied the power to use any combat force, technology, or other military weapon or plan against American civilians, except in cases of internal rebellion which only the Congress shall approve in writing. When the Congress fails to act, or abuses its authority, the State Governors may lawfully use deadly combat force to detain and enforce the laws of war prohibiting illegal use of force against American civilians.

O. The Presidents are denied the power to induce any civilian to take any action that might deny them on any Geneva protections as a civilian. Any order, ruse, scheme, propaganda, or unreliable information to induce anyone to wage war, information warfare, or any action to harass civilians is punishable by the death penalty, and may be enforced as a violation of the laws of war.

P. The President, when delegating any power to any agency head, agrees that that agency shall be organized as if it were a separate, lesser, and not coequal branch. Those agencies shall fully cooperate with the other branches of government to ensure power within the branch or department is divided. There is no single agency, division, or office in the Executive Branch that is beyond ongoing oversight by the other four branches.

Q. The President shall have no power to block the Congress, States, Judiciary, Prosecutorial, and Independent Branch from a having co-equal status to oversee, manage, and organize that lesser branch. If the President refuses to substantially comply with that requirement, Congress may not lawfully provide funding for that agency, and the funds return to the States and People.

sitemeter

About Me

Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?
Trying to train the next generation of diplomats what the issues that they will face are, how to survive the coming hard times and how to conduct themselves so that they, unlike most of their role models, DO THE RIGHT THING. They are inheriting a neocon Klusterfuck, are ill prepared and need whatever help they can get.